All posts by Emily Berg

The Learning Curve – Mandy Berman

May 29, 2019
by Emily Berg

How are young women supposed to see each other clearly when they can’t even see themselves? This razor-sharp novel “perfectly captures [the] power dynamics and identity issues that . . . women are forced to face.”—Marie Claire (Must-Read Books of 2019)

Fiona and Liv are seniors at Buchanan College, a small liberal arts school in rural Pennsylvania. Fiona, who is still struggling emotionally after the death of her younger sister, is spending her final college year sleeping with abrasive men she meets in bars. Liv is happily coupled and on the fast track to marriage with an all-American frat boy. Both of their journeys, and their friendship, will be derailed by the relationships they develop with Oliver Ash, a ruggedly good-looking visiting literature professor whose first novel was published to great success when he was twenty-six.

But now Oliver is in his early forties, with thinning hair and a checkered past, including talk of a relationship with an underage woman—a former student—at a previous teaching job. Meanwhile, Oliver’s wife, Simone, is pursuing an academic research project in Berlin, raising their five-year-old son, dealing with her husband’s absence, and wondering if their marriage is beyond repair.

This sly, stunning, wise-beyond-its-years novel is told from the perspectives of the three women and showcases Mandy Berman’s talent for exploring the complexities of desire, friendship, identity, and power dynamics in the contemporary moment.

Advance praise for The Learning Curve

“[A] smart, engaging coming-of-age story . . . [Mandy] Berman delivers a thorough and incredibly timely investigation into relationship power imbalances that’s sure to start a lot of conversations.”—Publishers Weekly

“Berman’s spot-on dialogue keeps the pages turning . . . timely . . . should find a large readership.”—Booklist

A Good Enough Mother – Bev Thomas

April 30, 2019
by Emily Berg

Ruth Hartland is a psychotherapist with years of experience. But professional skill is no guard against private grief. The mother of grown twins, she is haunted by the fact that her beautiful, difficult, fragile son Tom, a boy who never “fit in,” disappeared a year and a half earlier. She cannot give up hope of finding him, but feels she is living a kind of half-life, waiting for him to return.

Enter a new patient, Dan–unstable and traumatized–who looks exactly like her missing son. She is determined to help him, but soon, her own complicated feelings, about how she has failed her own boy, cloud her professional judgement. And before long, the unthinkable becomes a shattering reality….

An utterly compelling drama with a timebomb at its core, A Good Enough Mother is a brilliant, beautiful story of mothering, and how to let go of the ones we love when we must.

About the Author
Bev Thomas was a clinical psychologist in the NHS for many years. She currently works as an organizational consultant in mental health and other services. She lives in London with her family.

Mama’s Boy – Dustin Lance Black

April 30, 2019
by Emily Berg

Dustin Lance Black wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for Milk and helped overturn California’s anti–gay marriage Proposition 8, but as an LGBTQ activist he has unlikely origins—a conservative Mormon household outside San Antonio, Texas. His mother, Anne, was raised in rural Louisiana and contracted polio when she was two years old. She endured brutal surgeries, as well as braces and crutches for life, and was told that she would never have children or a family. Willfully defying expectations, she found salvation in an unlikely faith, raised three rough-and-rowdy boys, and escaped the abuse and violence of two questionably devised Mormon marriages before finding love and an improbable career in the U.S. civil service.

By the time Lance came out to his mother at age twenty-one, he was a blue-state young man studying the arts instead of going on his Mormon mission. She derided his sexuality as a sinful choice and was terrified for his future. It may seem like theirs was a house destined to be divided, and at times it was. This story shines light on what it took to remain a family despite such division—a journey that stretched from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court to the woodsheds of East Texas. In the end, the rifts that have split a nation couldn’t end this relationship that defined and inspired their remarkable lives.

Mama’s Boy is their story. It’s a story of the noble quest for a plane higher than politics—a story of family, foundations, turmoil, tragedy, elation, and love. It is a story needed now more than ever.

About the Author
Dustin Lance Black is a filmmaker and social activist, known for writing the Academy Award–winning screenplay of the Harvey Milk biopic Milk, and for his part in overturning California’s discriminatory Proposition 8. He divides his time between London and Texas.

Alpha Girls – Julian Guthrie

April 30, 2019
by Emily Berg

In Alpha Girls, award-winning journalist Julian Guthrie takes readers behind the closed doors of venture capital, an industry that transforms economies and shapes how we live. We follow the lives and careers of four women who were largely written out of history – until now.

Magdalena Yesil, who arrived in America from Turkey with $43 to her name, would go on to receive her electrical engineering degree from Stanford, found some of the first companies to commercialize internet access, and help Marc Benioff build Salesforce. Mary Jane Elmore went from the corn fields of Indiana to Stanford and on to the storied venture capital firm IVP – where she was one of the first women in the U.S. to make partner – only to be pulled back from the glass ceiling by expectations at home. Theresia Gouw, an overachieving first-generation Asian American from a working-class town, dominated the foosball tables at Brown (she would later reluctantly let Sergey Brin win to help Accel Partners court Google), before she helped land and build companies including Facebook, Trulia, Imperva, and ForeScout. Sonja Hoel, a Southerner who became the first woman investing partner at white-glove Menlo Ventures, invested in McAfee, Hotmail, Acme Packet, and F5 Networks. As her star was still rising at Menlo, a personal crisis would turn her into an activist overnight, inspiring her to found an all-women’s investment group and a national nonprofit for girls.

These women, juggling work and family, shaped the tech landscape we know today while overcoming unequal pay, actual punches, betrayals, and the sexist attitudes prevalent in Silicon Valley and in male-dominated industries everywhere. Despite the setbacks, they would rise again to rewrite the rules for an industry they love. In Alpha Girls, Guthrie reveals their untold stories.

About the Author
Julian Guthrie spent twenty years writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, where she won numerous awards and had her writing nominated multiple times for the Pulitzer Prize. She is the author of three nonfiction books: The Grace of Everyday Saints, The Billionaire and the Mechanic, and How to Make a Spaceship. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.


 

Walking on the Ceiling – Aysegul Savas

April 30, 2019
by Emily Berg

After her mother’s death, Nunu moves from Istanbul to a small apartment in Paris. One day outside of a bookstore, she meets M., an older British writer whose novels about Istanbul Nunu has always admired. They find themselves walking the streets of Paris and talking late into the night. What follows is an unusual friendship of eccentric correspondence and long walks around the city.

M. is working on a new novel set in Turkey and Nunu tells him about her family, hoping to impress and inspire him. She recounts the idyllic landscapes of her past, mythical family meals, and her elaborate childhood games. As she does so, she also begins to confront her mother’s silence and anger, her father’s death, and the growing unrest in Istanbul. Their intimacy deepens, so does Nunu’s fear of revealing too much to M. and of giving too much of herself and her Istanbul away. Most of all, she fears that she will have to face her own guilt about her mother and the narratives she’s told to protect herself from her memories.

A wise and unguarded glimpse into a young woman’s coming into her own, Walking on the Ceiling is about memory, the pleasure of invention, and those places, real and imagined, we can’t escape.

About the Author
Ayşegül Savaş grew up in Turkey and Denmark. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, Guernica, and elsewhere, and was shortlisted for the Glimmer Train Fiction Prize and the Graywolf Emerging Writers Award. She has an MFA from the University of San Francisco. She teaches at the Sorbonne and lives in Paris.

The Weight of a Piano – Chris Cander

January 24, 2019
by Emily Berg
For fans of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, Amanda Coplin’s The Orchardist

A tour-de-force about two women and the piano that inexorably ties their lives together through time and across continents, for better and for worse.

In 1962, in the Soviet Union, eight-year-old Katya is bequeathed what will become the love of her life: a Blüthner piano, built at the turn of the century in Germany, on which she discovers everything that she herself can do with music and what music, in turn, does for her. Yet after marrying, she emigrates with her young family from Russia to America, at her husband’s frantic insistence, and her piano is lost in the shuffle.
In 2012, in Bakersfield, California, twenty-six-year-old Clara Lundy loses another boyfriend and again has to find a new apartment, which is complicated by the gift her father had given her for her twelfth birthday, shortly before he and her mother died in a fire that burned their house down: a Blüthner upright she has never learned to play. Orphaned, she was raised by her aunt and uncle, who in his car-repair shop trained her to become a first-rate mechanic, much to the surprise of her subsequent customers. But this work, her true mainstay in a scattered life, is put on hold when her hand gets broken while the piano’s being moved–and in sudden frustration she chooses to sell it. And what becomes crucial is who the most interested party turns out to be. . .


About the Author
CHRIS CANDER graduated from the Honors College at the University of Houston, in the city where she was raised and still lives, with her husband, daughter, and son. For seven years she has been a writer-in-residence for Writers in the Schools there. She serves on the Inprint advisory board and stewards several Little Free Libraries in her community. Her first novel,11 Stories, won the Independent Publisher Gold Medal for Popular Fiction, and her most recent, Whisper Hollow, was long-listed for the Great Santini Fiction Prize by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. She is also the author of The Word Burglar, which won the 2014 Moonbeam Children’s Book Award (silver).

Praise For The Weight of a Piano: A novel…

“A charming, puzzling plot that gets more exciting and addictive the deeper you sink into it. . . . Cander’s unadorned prose composes some truly beautiful descriptions of the joy of music.”—Leslie Hinson, BookPage [starred]

“The Weight of a Piano showcases [Cander’s] development as a powerful storyteller, reminding me of Accordion Crimes by the great Annie Proulx. . . .  [This is] an original, creative tackling of the essentially solitary human condition; the effort required of women to claim full personhood; and the frightening vulnerability necessary to connect with another, defiant in the face of the transitory nature of all things”—Michelle Newby, Lone Star Literary

“Cander interweaves a surprising, time-jumping plot with a deep understanding of her characters’ emotional landscapes. The Weight of a Piano is also an exploration of the healing and cathartic powers of art and music, making it the perfect gift for the creatives in your life.”—Elena Nicolaou, Refinery29

“[An] extraordinary tale of pain, fear, loss and love. . . . The Weight of a Piano is a touching story of survival–for two families, two girls, and an instrument.”—Jim Alkon, BookTrib.com

“In The Weight of a Piano, two women are linked by one instrument. . . . Chris Cander masterfully reveals how these women’s lives connect (and how the piano came to be made) and, in the process, meditates on grief and living in the past.”—Elizabeth Sile, Real Simple “Five Books That Won’t Disappoint”

“This beautiful tale . . . is impossible to put down and impossible to forget.”—Library Journal [starred]

“Strong characterization and attention to detail, whether in the manufacture of a piano or in the desolate beauty of Death Valley, elevate Cander’s tale about learning to let go of the past.”—Booklist

“Deftly plotted and well written, a gentle meditation on the healing power of art–and its limitations. . . . Cander grabs the reader in her bravura, thickly detailed opening pages [and] expertly parcels out her revelations [as] she builds parallel narratives [toward] an odd but beautiful finale.”–Kirkus Reviews[starred]

“Like Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, The Weight of a Piano is a visionary work about the madness inherent in all art and the burdens of history that give rise to art and must be carried in turn. The miracle of this wonderful novel is to place an object, weighted with history, in a locale where we would never expect to find it, making the unexpected both palpable and real, and by doing so, this beautiful, intricate novel gives us one indelible picture after another, each one written in a different key.”–Charles Baxter

“The Weight of a Piano tenderly illuminates the solace–and the suffering–that art can bring to those who have endured grievous loss. Cander’s ingenious plot braids together vividly disparate geographies and times, swerving deliciously whenever we think we know where she’s heading. She understands love and terror and the uncanny power of inheritance.”–Pamela Erens

“Cander takes readers into new and uncharted territory with a story that spans a century, continents, cultures, and many lives. This novel is sly and sexy and serendipitous, and through the magic and wisdom surrounding a single piano it helps to restore what is beautiful in both art and life. To me, The Weight of a Piano already feels indelible.”–Peter Geye

“At the heart of this novel is an old German upright piano whose music reverberates through the stories of two seemingly unconnected people: a man on an inexplicable quest to photograph it, and a woman who, despite being unable to play it, can’t let it go. Elegantly twisting the strands together, Cander explores how art and music change and enrich our lives, often in wondrous and remarkable ways, and also touches on love and loss, memory and forgetting, perseverance and self-discovery. Like a powerful melody, The Weight of a Piano is haunting, evocative, and impossible to forget.”–Christina Baker Kline

“Cander’s portrait of two powerful women and the heartbreaking intersection of their families is arresting and affecting, but as all its characters would agree, the real heart of this novel is the Blüthner upright piano we track from its soundboard’s origin in a Romanian forest: an instrument so charismatic that for both women it’s a way of floating above their world and connecting to a lost home, as well as eventually to a version of themselves they’ve never before considered. The Weight of a Piano soars when it obsesses and lets us see what it is it hears.”—Jim Shepard

Cuba Libre!: Che, Fidel, and the Improbable Revolution That Changed World History – Tony Perrottet

January 24, 2019
by Emily Berg
The surprising story of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and the scrappy band of rebel men and women who followed them.

Most people are familiar with the basics of the Cuban Revolution of 1956–1959: it was led by two of the twentieth century’s most charismatic figures, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara; it successfully overthrew the island nation’s US–backed dictator; and it quickly went awry under Fidel’s rule.

But less is remembered about the amateur nature of the movement or the lives of its players. In this wildly entertaining and meticulously researched account, historian and journalist Tony Perrottet unravels the human drama behind history’s most improbable revolution: a scruffy handful of self-taught revolutionaries—many of them kids just out of college, literature majors, and art students, and including a number of extraordinary women—who defeated 40,000 professional soldiers to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Cuba Libre!’s deep dive into the revolution reveals fascinating details: How did Fidel’s highly organized lover Celia Sánchez whip the male guerrillas into shape? Who were the two dozen American volunteers who joined the Cuban rebels? How do you make land mines from condensed milk cans—or, for that matter, cook chorizo à la guerrilla (sausage guerrilla-style)?

Cuba Libre! is an absorbing look back at a liberation movement that captured the world’s imagination with its spectacular drama, foolhardy bravery, tragedy, and, sometimes, high comedy—and that set the stage for Cold War tensions that pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war.

About the Author
Tony Perrottet is the author of five books: Off the Deep End, Pagan Holiday, The Naked Olympics, Napoleon’s Privates, and The Sinner’s Grand Tour. His travel stories have been translated into a dozen languages and widely anthologized, having been selected six times for the Best American Travel Writing series. He is a regular television guest on the History Channel and a contributing writer at Smithsonian Magazine; his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, T+L, Outside, Surface, and the London Sunday Times. He lives in New York.


Praise For Cuba Libre!: Che, Fidel, and the Improbable Revolution That Changed World History…

“Perrottet does an excellent job capturing the absurdities that came with the revolution…Cuba Libre! brings history to life with thorough research and wildly addictive writing.”
—Newsday

“An excellent chronology of Cuba’s liberation—dramatic, human, and illuminating.”
—Paul Theroux, author of The Great Railway Bazaar

“An excellent new entry on the subject, with a memorable opening line and highly enjoyable chapters. If you read only one recent book on Cuba, have it be this delightful popular history.”
—Library Journal (starred)

“Perrottet’s history excels in putting a human face on the fighters…the revolution’s real stars were the smart and strong women whoacted as spies, couriers, logistical experts, and ultimately as the bravest, fiercest, and most indispensible combatants.”
—Booklist

“Fast-paced and highly entertaining.”
—Book Page

“Tony Perrottet sure knows how to tell a story — and what a story this is! With Cuba Libre!, Perrottet takes us far beyond the basic facts of the Cuban revolution to the juicy details that remind us that history is deeply human: Fidel’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan show was followed by a poodle fashion parade; the rebels loved to read Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls between operations in the mountains; breaded snake cutlets were a favorite snack…. Perrottet gained access to private letters, diaries, and other documents no other historian has seen, and he has written a fabulous account of one of the most unlikely, romantic, astounding events of the 20th century.”
—Chris Ryan, New York Times-bestselling author of Sex at Dawn and Civilized to Death

“Cuba cracked open its treasure chest of historical archives for Tony Perrottet and he uncovered so many long-lost secrets about the Revolution that even those who think they know all about Fidel’s improbable victory will end up shaking their heads in disbelief. Commanders who act like a Caribbean Rat Pack. Military maneuvers that resemble an Oceans Eleven escapade. And a series of long, long shots that, incredibly, paid off for the Castros. Perrottet tells this familiar story in an unforgettable way that is as raucous as it is revealing.”
—Anthony DePalma, author of The Man Who Invented Fidel

“Sexy, humorous, fast-moving and deeply-researched, Cuba Libre! overturns the mythology of the Cuban Revolution, while finding the genuinely epic dimensions of the island and its history. From the debauched present of Havana to the rebellious past of Santiago, the gimlet-eyed Tony Perrottet is a canny guide to all the dreams and miseries of Cuba. Should be banned by the Communist Party.”
—Patrick Symmes, author of Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Che Legend and The Boys From Dolores: Fidel Castro’s Schoolmates from Revolution to Exile

Golden State – Ben Winters

January 24, 2019
by Emily Berg

“Golden State is a gripping and brainy page-turner. Winters asks his readers to imagine California as a sovereign (and surveillance) state in which intentionally lying is the greatest federal offense. The ‘Byzantine business of reality maintenance’ is carried out by a team of federal agents, including our hero, Laszlo Ratesic. Golden State is a mystery in both form and content. In addition to the seemingly simple incident Laszlo investigates at the start of the novel, there’s the bigger question of what a novel really is, or means, or can do in the ‘good, golden, safe’ world its readers are transported to. Winters is especially good at keeping his readers off-balance. Not even his biggest fans will see some of the twists and turns he’s built into this, his best book yet.”
— John Francisconi, Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT

From award-winning, New York Times bestselling novelist Ben H. Winters comes a mind-bending novel set in a world governed by absolute truth, where lies are as dangerous as murder.

 
In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible.
In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime–and stopping those crimes is Laz’s job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to “speculate” on what might have happened.
But the Golden State is less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the truth requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance and recording. And when those in control of the facts twist them for nefarious means, the Speculators are the only ones with the power to fight back.


About the Author

Ben H. Winters is the New York Times bestselling author of Underground Airlines and the Last Policeman trilogy. The second novel in the trilogy, Countdown City, was an NPR Best Book of 2013 and the winner of the Philip K. Dick award. The Last Policeman was the recipient of the 2012 Edgar Award, and was also named one of the Best Books of 2012 by Amazon.com and Slate. Ben lives with his family in Los Angeles, CA.


Praise For Golden State…

“A perfectly poised ontological-thriller-comedy-dystopian-allegorical-page-turner, yet with tenderly real characters in its chewy center, this turned out to be just the thing I was looking for.”—Jonathan Lethem

“Not many writers would take on Orwell, Ray Bradbury, the nature of truth, and the current administration all at a blow. Big shoes to fill–and they fit Ben H. Winters just fine. Golden Stategrabs notions of disinformation and literalism and brilliantly turns them on their head to see what falls from their pockets.”—James Sallis, author of Drive

“Golden State is a prescient, devastating commentary on humanity’s disintegrating attachment to reality and truth, expertly told through the prism of a police-procedural, dystopian nightmare. Winters has written a 1984 for the 21st century. Not just a thrilling book, but an important one.”—Blake Crouch, author of Dark Matter

“A skillful and swift-moving concoction . . . For those who like their dystopias with a dash of humor. No lie.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Thought-provoking, genre-bending . . . Winters seems to have a real affection for unusually compelling premises. . . . He certainly knows how to bring those premises to life in a way that keeps readers flipping pages. . . . What’s especially intriguing about the book is the way Winters dispenses information, dropping a hint here, a key sentence there, and letting us figure out what happened in the past that led to a society in which the punishment for telling a lie could be exile. . . . . Another fine novel from a writer whose imagination knows no bounds.”—Booklist

“This near-future thriller by Edgar winner Winters is likely to provoke discussion.”—Publishers Weekly

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and Mother’s Will to Survive – Stephanie Land

January 23, 2019
by Emily Berg

Evicted meets Nickel and Dimed in Stephanie Land’s memoir about working as a maid, a beautiful and gritty exploration of poverty in America. Includes a foreword by Barbara Ehrenreich.

At 28, Stephanie Land’s plans of breaking free from the roots of her hometown in the Pacific Northwest to chase her dreams of attending a university and becoming a writer, were cut short when a summer fling turned into an unexpected pregnancy. She turned to housekeeping to make ends meet, and with a tenacious grip on her dream to provide her daughter the very best life possible, Stephanie worked days and took classes online to earn a college degree, and began to write relentlessly. She wrote the true stories that weren’t being told: the stories of overworked and underpaid Americans. Of living on food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) coupons to eat. Of the government programs that provided her housing, but that doubled as halfway houses. The aloof government employees who called her lucky for receiving assistance while she didn’t feel lucky at all. She wrote to remember the fight, to eventually cut through the deep-rooted stigmas of the working poor.

Maid explores the underbelly of upper-middle class America and the reality of what it’s like to be in service to them. “I’d become a nameless ghost,” Stephanie writes about her relationship with her clients, many of whom do not know her from any other cleaner, but who she learns plenty about. As she begins to discover more about her clients’ lives-their sadness and love, too-she begins to find hope in her own path.
Her compassionate, unflinching writing as a journalist gives voice to the “servant” worker, and those pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line. Maid is Stephanie’s story, but it’s not her alone. It is an inspiring testament to the strength, determination, and ultimate triumph of the human spirit.


About the Author

Journalist Stephanie Land‘s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Vox, Salon, and many other outlets. She focuses on social and economic justice as a writing fellow through both the Center for Community Change and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

BARBARA EHRENREICH is the author of fourteen books, including the bestselling Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. She lives in Virginia.

 

Advance praise for Maid

“Marry the evocative first person narrative of Educated with the kind of social criticism seen in Nickel and Dimed and you’ll get a sense of the remarkable book you hold in your hands. In Maid, Stephanie Land, a gifted storyteller with an eye for details you’ll never forget, exposes what it’s like to exist in America as a single mother, working herself sick cleaning our dirty toilets, one missed paycheck away from destitution. It’s a perspective we seldom see represented firsthand-and one we so desperately need right now. Timely, urgent, and unforgettable, this is memoir at its very best.”—Susannah Cahalan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

“Stephanie Land’s heartrending book, Maid, provides a trenchant reminder that something is amiss with the American Dream and gives voice to the millions of ‘working poor’ toiling in a country that needs them but doesn’t want to see them. A sad and hopeful tale of being on the outside looking in, the author makes us wonder how’d we fare scrubbing and vacuuming away the detritus of an affluence that always seems beyond reach.”—Steve Dublanica, New York Times bestselling author of Waiter Rant

“As a solo mom and former house cleaner, this brave book resonated with me on a very deep level. We live in a world where the solo mother is an incomplete story: adrift in the world without a partner, without support, without a grounding, centering (male) force. But women have been doing this since the dawn of time, and Stephanie Land is one of millions of solo moms forced to get blood from stone. She is at once an old and new kind of American hero. This memoir of resilience and love has never been more necessary.”—Domenica Ruta, New York Times bestselling author of With or Without You

“For readers who believe individuals living below the poverty line are lazy and/or intellectually challenged, this memoir is a stark, necessary corrective…. [T]he narrative also offers a powerful argument for increasing government benefits for the working poor during an era when most benefits are being slashed…. An important memoir that should be required reading for anyone who has never struggled with poverty.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“[A] heartfelt and powerful debut memoir…. Land’s love for her daughter… shines brightly through the pages of this beautiful, uplifting story of resilience and survival.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Tells an honest story many are too afraid to examine.”—SheKnows.com

“[A] vivid and visceral yet nearly unrelenting memoir… Her journey offers an illuminating read that should inspire outrage, hope, and change.”—Library Journal

“Raw…Land [is] a gifted storyteller…Offers moments of levity…[Maid] shows we need to create an economy in which single
motherhood and the risk of poverty do not go hand in hand.”—Ms. Magazine

“Maid delves into her time working for the upper middle class in the service industry, and in it, uncovers the true strength of the human spirit.”—San Diego Entertainer, Books to Kick Off Your New Year

“An eye-opening exploration of poverty in America.”—Bustle

“Takes readers inside the gritty, unglamorous life of the underpaid,
overworked people who serve the upper-middle class for a living.”—Parade

“In a country whose frayed safety net gets less policy attention than the
marginal tax rate, Land is the anomaly not only in surviving to tell the
tale – and in telling it with such compelling economy.”—Vulture, 8 New Books You Should Read this January

“It is with beautiful prose that Land chronicles her time working as a
housekeeper to make ends meet…Captur[es] the experience of hardworking
Americans who make little money and are often invisible to their
employers.”—Boston.com, 20 Books to Read in 2019

“Land’s memoir forces readers to examine their implicit
judgments about what we mean by the value of hard work in America and societal
expectations of motherhood.”—Electric Lit

Vox – Christina Dalcher

August 21, 2018
by Emily Berg

“[An] electrifying debut.”–O, Oprah Magazine
“The real-life parallels will make you shiver.”–Cosmopolitan

One of Entertainment Weekly‘s and SheReads’ books to read after The Handmaid’s Tale
One of Good Morning America‘s “Best Books to Bring to the Beach This Summer”
One of PopSugar, Refinery29, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Real Simple, i09, and Amazon’s best books to read in August

Set in a United States in which half the population has been silenced, Vox is the harrowing, unforgettable story of what one woman will do to protect herself and her daughter.

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than one hundred words per day, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial. This can’t happen here. Not in America. Not to her.

This is just the beginning…

Soon women are not permitted to hold jobs. Girls are not taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words each day, but now women have only one hundred to make themselves heard.

…not the end.

For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.

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